The Bridegroom (23 page)

Reggie felt her husband’s weight settle onto her. His face nuzzled against her throat, his breathing as tortured as her own. He should have been too heavy, but the feather mattresses cushioned them both, and he provided a warm cover as her sweaty flesh cooled in the evening air.

The tears came without warning, and Reggie turned her face away and blinked hard to keep them from falling. She did not understand herself. How could she have made love to Carlisle? Although
making love
hardly seemed to describe what had just happened. She should have fought harder. She had not only surrendered to her husband’s attentions, she had
enjoyed
them!

Reggie knew she had to find a way to make Carlisle understand this could never happen again. Not until he had forgiven her father. Not until good relations between the two men had been restored.

“Clay?” When he did not answer, she nudged his shoulder. “Clay?”

The rogue was asleep.

Reggie half-shoved, half-slid her way out from under him. She was surprised to discover, when she tried to stand, that her knees were still wobbly. She crossed to the copper tub of bathwater, frowning when she saw the soap scum on the surface. Reggie shivered when she dipped a toe in and felt how cold and slimy the water was, but she would have jumped into a murky, icy pond,
if necessary, to free herself from the musky smell of lovemaking that clung to her.

She stood and sluiced herself with the cold, soapy water using a sponge, noticing how tender her breasts were where Carlisle’s day-old beard had rubbed and how tender she was between her thighs. Reggie wasn’t sure when she realized she was being watched. Her gaze skipped to the bed. She hissed in a breath when she met Carlisle’s dark, intent gaze.

Her first instinct was to cover herself, but he had already seen all there was to see. Instead, she turned her back to him, ignoring him as though he were not there, and continued her ablutions. Reggie was so determined not to pay Carlisle any attention that she was startled when she felt his hand touch her back.

She jerked upright, but managed at the last instant not to turn around. She kept her back to him and glanced over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

She held her breath as his fingertips traced a line on her back, and then another, and another.

“I never noticed these scars before,” he said. “Did he beat you?”

She stared at him in confusion. “What?”

His jaw was taut, his dark eyes dangerous. “I recognize the mark of a lash, my dear,” he said in a harsh voice. “Someone beat you. Was it your father?”

She shook her head. “No. A governess. Miss Tolemeister.”

Carlisle lifted a brow. “And your father allowed it?”

“Of course not! He was the best of fathers.”

“Obviously not,” Carlisle countered.

Reggie felt his fingertips once again trace the three marks where Miss Tolemeister had wielded her rod so efficiently. “Papa is not responsible for those welts. He left me and my sister with my uncle Marcus while he traveled to Scotland. He was gone for a year. We later learned that he had been shipwrecked and had amnesia from a blow to his head.

“It was not long after Papa left that Uncle Marcus was wounded grievously at Waterloo. He did not want anyone to see him scarred so horribly, so my sister and I had a series of governesses during the year Papa was gone, six or seven in all. And one of them …”

She felt his lips against her back, kissing her, as his hands captured her waist. Goose bumps rose on her flesh.

“You’re cold,” he said, abruptly releasing her. He turned to look for a towel and found one near the fire, which he wrapped around her from behind and tucked around her breasts. Then he lifted her out of the tub and turned her to face him.

As he kissed her throat beneath her ear, she continued breathlessly, “I am trying to explain—”

“Your lips are swollen,” he said, kissing them gently. “Does that hurt?”

“No,” she murmured.

He walked her toward the looking glass, staying behind her, and reached for the jar of salve that Pegg had left on the dressing table. He opened it, dipped in his fingers, and began to smooth the figwort concoction onto her blisters.

She hissed at the sting as the salve touched her skin.

He bit her ear, distracting her from the pain, and she moaned with pleasure. He continued kissing her the entire time he ministered to her hands. Reggie closed her eyes and concentrated on the feel of his lips, instead of the sting in her hands, until she heard the lid being replaced on the jar.

When she opened her eyes, she saw herself reflected in the looking glass. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, her body languid in Carlisle’s embrace.

He was seducing her again! As Reggie jerked herself free, she nearly fell over backward into the tub. She grabbed hold of Carlisle’s arms to keep her balance, wincing as her blisters brushed against his flesh. Once she was steady, she stepped away from the tub and turned to face him, wrapping the towel more securely around her, forcing herself to keep her eyes on his face and not the rest of his very aroused body.

“I was explaining why my father was not responsible for the scars on my back,” she said. “I think it is a story that bears telling. It proves he is a good man, not at all the kind of person who would unjustly accuse another.”

Night had fallen, and besides a single candle lit beside the bed, the only light came from the flickering fire. She could not help admiring the breadth of Clay’s shoulders and the muscles in his arms. She could make out each of his ribs and found her gaze moving to his flat stomach and to the dark line of hair that led downward from there.

She forced her gaze back to his face and blurted, “Pegg will be waiting supper for us.” Then she escaped behind the Chinese dressing screen, where she had left
one of the several dresses Pegg had hung in the wardrobe while she had been working in the rose garden. The garments were of the sort a woman of her station might wear, but smelled slightly of camphor and were years out of style. She had chosen a long-sleeved copper silk dress.

“Where did these clothes come from?” she asked.

“I asked Pegg to bring down a trunk from the attic,” he said. “They belonged to my wife.”

Reggie froze, staring down at the dress which, aside from being a trifle too long, fit her perfectly. How could Carlisle bear to see her in his wife’s clothes? Then she realized it was the surest way of reminding him of who she was, and why he had married her.

Reggie felt sick. Their courtship, during which she had believed she was so cleverly testing Carlisle for flaws, had merely been a game to him, with the winner long since decided. She had just collected another bit of proof that Carlisle had married her for only one reason. And it was the wrong one.

When Reggie came out from behind the screen, Carlisle was already dressed in trousers and boots and was pulling on a shirt. She crossed to the wing chair near the fire and sat down, ignoring him. She stared into the fire, wondering how she could ever hope to unscramble the mess she had made of her life.

Carlisle startled her by speaking directly over her shoulder. “You were telling me what you did to get those stripes.”

She continued staring into the fire. “Miss Tolemeister objected to a prank I had played and wanted me to admit
I was a bad child. I refused. She applied the rod to convince me of the error of my ways. It infuriated her that she could not make me cry.”

His hands caressed her shoulders. “And yet I managed to provoke a tear the first time I met you.”

“I … you …”

“Go on, my dear,” he said.

“There is not much more to tell. At long last, the most wonderful and kind lady, Miss Eliza Sheringham, became our governess and then my aunt, when she married my uncle Marcus. That was the end of any beatings by stern governesses for misbehavior. While my father was in Scotland, he met his future wife, Lady Katherine MacKinnon.”

“And me,” Carlisle interjected.

Reggie rose and turned to face him. “I know you have suffered greatly as a result of being transported,” she said. “But can you not leave the past where it belongs? Can we not go on from here?”

She was close enough to feel the tension in his body, to see the way the muscles in his jaw jerked as he ground his teeth. For a moment she thought he would refuse to speak. At last he said, “Your father humiliated me. He had me treated like a common felon!”

Reggie was horrified by the venom in Carlisle’s voice and took a step back. “He must have had some evidence—”

“None besides his word! And that of Cedric Ambleside.”

She reached out a careful hand, as she would to appease a snarling dog. “I think it is time you found this
villain, Mr. Ambleside,” Reggie said, crossing to Clay. “It seems he is more responsible for what happened to you than my father. I’ll help you. We’ll make him tell the truth, and—”

“That is not enough. Ambleside must die.”

“You cannot kill the man,” Reggie said. “That would make you a murderer!”

“That is justice, not murder.”

“What kind of monster have I married?”

“The Sea Dragon, my dear,” Carlisle said, bowing to her. “Terror of the Seven Seas, savage plunderer, vicious pirate, convicted criminal … courtesy of your very own papa.”

Reggie flushed. “Anyone can make a mistake.”

“Not all of them have such deadly consequences.”

Reggie lifted her eyes to meet Carlisle’s fierce, unrelenting gaze. “Can you not find it in your heart to forgive him? For my sake?”

“No.”

She swallowed over the sudden knot in her throat. “Very well. If you will not relent, I must resort to drastic measures.”

“Meaning?” Carlisle asked.

She took a step back. “I will not willingly lie with you again, my lord. Not until you have forgiven my father.”

Carlisle’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t threaten me, my dear.”

“ ’Tis no threat.” Reggie balled her hands into fists to keep Carlisle from seeing that they were shaking. “You can, of course, take me by force. You may even
manage to seduce me.” He had already proved he could. “But I will hate you for it.”

“You are my wife. You must obey me.”

“I am yours to command, my lord. Except in bed.”

“Bloody hell, woman. You’re my wife!”

“When you’re ready to treat me as a beloved helpmate, when you’re willing to make my family—all of my family—your own, then we may address the subject. Until then, I will not couple with you again.”

C
lay stared at his wife, knowing that if a string of severe London governesses had failed to break her spirit, he was unlikely to succeed. “Are you coming down to supper,” he asked.

“I’m not hungry.”

He looked at Reggie’s wan features and realized she was exhausted. The stubborn chit was probably starving as well, but he was in no mood to cajole her. A night without supper would do her no lasting harm. And having her at the supper table was sure to interfere with his own digestion. He might have found the chit’s defiance exhilarating, if it were not equally exasperating.

“Good night, wife,” he said, as he left the bedroom. “I trust you will sleep well. Alone.”

“I will!” she retorted.

He opened his mouth to reply, but decided it was entirely acceptable to give her the final word, so long as the final action was his. He grabbed the candle from the bedside table to light his way downstairs and yanked the door closed behind him.

Which was when he realized he had just denied himself a place in the only bed in the house.

Clay searched the rest of the upstairs bedrooms to see whether there might be some other place to lay his head. But the wooden bedframes possessed no mattresses, nor were there chairs in any of the rooms that he might draw together for a makeshift bed.

He stomped down the stairs, furious with Reggie for denying him. Even more furious with himself for not taking what was his due.

“Threw ye out, did she, lad?”

Pegg stood at the bottom of the stairs, a lantern in one hand, a covered tray in the other, and a disgustingly smug grin on his face.

“Stubble it, Pegg. I am in no mood for your wit.”

Pegg headed up the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Clay demanded.

“I have a wee bit of a supper here for yer wife. There’s a plate for ye in the library, if the rats havna gotten to it. Maybe ye can make up a bed in there.”

Clay didn’t question how Pegg knew his wife wasn’t coming down to supper, or that he wasn’t sleeping upstairs. He simply turned and stalked down the hall toward the one room he knew had a chair and a fire and food.

The library smelled even mustier than Clay remembered. Many of the leather bookbindings were moldy. His father’s elegant mahogany secretaire had survived by virtue of being in a corner away from the windows that framed the French doors leading out into the rose garden. An armed wing chair appeared to be in good
enough condition to provide comfort. Clay picked it up and moved it in front of the fire, then found a wooden stool that had been used to reach books on the upper shelves, and hauled it over to provide a footrest.

He found the plate of food on the secretaire and discovered a meat pasty and some cheese beneath the cloth cover. He looked for something to drink and saw that Pegg had provided a bottle of port and a chipped crystal goblet. He carried everything over to the chair in front of the fire, where it was warmer, and sat down to eat with his food in his lap, the goblet and bottle of port on the floor beside him.

He practically swallowed the meat pasty whole and had devoured the cheese as well before Pegg returned. He was still hungry, but loath to ask Pegg to wait on him—since the older man looked as tired as Reggie—and reluctant to leave the warmth of the fire to wait on himself.

“Have you eaten?” he asked Pegg.

“I have.”

“Would you like some port?” he asked, offering the bottle.

Pegg shook his head.

“Then pull up a bed,” Clay said.

Pegg shoved a small sofa over next to Clay’s wing chair, then took several books from one of the shelves and put them under the corner of the sofa where a leg was missing, until he had it leveled out. He stretched out with his head cushioned at one end of the sofa and his leg and peg hanging off the other end.